


Hurricane

by Vee



Category: Muse
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-16
Updated: 2011-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:23:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vee/pseuds/Vee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A/U set in the U.S. – Hitch-hiking Matt and the kind, unsuspecting (okay, maybe a LITTLE BIT suspecting) Dom who takes him in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

So when this all happened, about a year and some odd months ago, it happened almost exclusively because I took to frequenting this little coffee shop in an old shopping complex that died along with the age of the mini-mall. There was a Burger King on the corner and the parking lot was almost always empty. Most of the people in town just called it the furniture mall, because there were, and I shit you not, about five furniture store in that one complex, all bunched together and made to do battle. As for the other units that sat empty most years since 1989 or so, businesses breezed through and summarily died like so many flavors of the week. The coffee shop known as Original Java was only the latest in a long string of failed attempts in the little storefront wedged between Kelly’s Recliner Gallery and Coastal Resort Showcase (the latter only pretended to be more high-class; at least Kelly’s didn’t lie about it) (nothing in Original was high-class, I will still argue this till I’m blue in the face).

I’d seen an Asian Imports store come through there, one of those places where you can buy high-grade hunting knives and swords free of suspicion because they’ve got dragons and shit on them. Then there was a vitamin store or something. A fabric store that lasted about three months. My personal favorite was the church that moved in. No joke; a church. Hand to God. I always wondered what sort of tax breaks you got when your church was located in a broke down mini-mall. 

But then, come the Summer of 2010, it was a coffee shop, and it happened to be on my way home from work and open late enough that I could still sneak in a very unwise dose of caffeine before I went home to stay up until 3:00a.m. watching reruns of Cosby. I’m really sorry if you thought you were settling in for a story about some exciting, successful, sexy narrator. I am not. I’m an assistant manager at a men’s clothing store, and I live in Original. That knocks about ten thousand sexy points off, right there. 

Yes, before we go any further, the name of my hometown is Original. It’s one of those coastal towns in Florida that’s close to absolutely _nothing_ but water and trees. There’s one elementary school, one middle school, and for some inexplicable reason, two high schools. Someone told me once that they bus over the kids from the other towns, like Aquamarine and Sea Oats (yes, God, I know. All of the placenames are pretentious. I guess that’s how they lure Northerners to buy condominiums. “Oh, we need an address in _Sea Oats_ ”), and it also formed some sort of manufactured football rivalry. I guess. Lately there’s been a push for youth soccer, if local billboards tell me anything.

All things considered, this town is small, it’s pedestrian, it’s quiet, and it’s _dull_. Sure, it’s pretty. I guess it’s “idyllic”. But what good is that when you’ve seen it day-in and day-out for twenty-four years? It sucks, actually, especially since it’s a black hole of a town that offers no opportunity for escape unless you jump on the first available scholarships in high school or go to Foster Vocational Academy for, I don’t know, plumbing or something. No one gets out of this town, and no one simply “ends up” in this town.

So, strangers tend to stand out. Not in a _Deliverance_ sort of way – I mean, we are in the South, but Original’s more yuppie than redneck, more well-meaning “I’m a Conservative but I donated to NPR” Republicans than gun-toting hillbillies. So instead of kidnapping and torture the locals just talk about you and judge you really harshly behind your back. Sometimes it’s adorable, like when one of the old ladies who works for my store tells me about how she met “a nice young man from California who doesn’t eat meat” like it’s the most novel thing in the entire world. 

Other times, it’s sort of intriguing. Like the guy sitting across from me late one night at Original Java, on the far end of the shop, next to the window. He was just sitting there with his legs propped up in the opposite seat, with what appeared to be an empty mug in front of him. Black track pants, white t-shirt. Little. Not, you know, scrawny and nerdy like that, but literally just a compact little dude, who happened to be looking out the window blissfully, earbuds securely in place, bobbing a yo-yo with one hand and sufficiently distracting me from any other thing I could be concentrating on. 

Oh, yeah, by the way, I’m gay. Hi, how are you doing? I live in a town so Republican it might as well just paint itself red, and I had started to think that I was The Only Gay Person in Original. I had the odd crush here and there, like the lifeguard who came in to buy one suit a year or our UPS delivery guy. But nothing panned out, needless to say. 

Did I find the stranger attractive? Fuck if I know whether things started out that way. The foremost thing on my mind was “What is this guy even doing here?” 

Not because it was Original. Not particularly that night, no. Though the thought was niggling in the back of my head, I knew very well that there were people living here I had never met. There wasn’t a particular way the locals behaved, especially since a good percentage were transplants from the Northern U.S., but one thing was for damn certain: that auspicious September evening, most of the town had already battened down the figurative hatches.

No big deal. Just a Category 2 hurricane. It would probably be downgraded by the time it made landfall, which was supposed to be around 4:00 a.m. I saw it as an opportunity to sleep in, while the Weather Channel and most of the country freaked directly out, calling Hurricane Tabitha dangerous. I suppose if you were in a boat, or if you didn’t put your boat in dock, or if you had a very, very old and creaky oak tree in your front yard, then yeah, maybe a Category 2 hurricane posed some threat. But I’d seen enough of these. Everyone had seen enough of these. Half the time they wouldn’t even shut down the schools for a Category 2. 

Regardless, people loved to keep up appearances. Stock up on batteries! Buy as many gallons of water as you can! Fill your bathtubs! Get the generator out! I fucking _hated_ going through hurricanes when I was younger, except for the storms themselves. A nice bit of peace and quiet, sometimes. It gave you an excuse not to go out, or to have to talk to people you didn’t want to. The hurricane was an all-purpose excuse. “Can’t talk, hurricane. Lightning might strike the phone line, kill us both.” “Can’t come in to work, hurricane.” “Can’t fix the fence in the backyard this weekend, hurricane.” See? It was just a delightful way for people on the coast to avoid obligations during the Summer and early Fall. 

So what was this guy doing here? Original Java was closing up in thirty minutes, and he’d been there when I showed up, after work at around 9:20 p.m. There was a large, well-stuffed backpack on the chair next to him. His shoes were dirty. I kept staring. And he noticed. 

When he glanced over me, I gulped like a cartoon character. I suppose he was trying to get me back for that bullshit shrinking violet look I gave him earlier, when he passed by on his way to the restroom. I had two choices, the way I saw it. I could lift my head out of my pathetic little comfort zone of hot cappuccino and my iPhone. I could smile at him, not be a shrinking violet, and actually try to get laid tonight. Yes, may I help you? He was hot! No idea whether he was gay, but trust me on this one, it’s never stopped me before. I could hazard him a glance, as they say. 

Or I could play it safe, play it cool, play it fucking blind. My brain broke into a million reasons this would be the better option. Maybe he was crazy, maybe he was into weird shit, or maybe he was just watching me because he was waiting for me to leave he could kidnap me in the parking lot and murder me.

 _Oh, God, Dominic, get it together,_ I thought, _you’ve never even had a boyfriend, just save yourself the embarrassment either way. Every time you open your mouth these days, something embarrassing comes out._

But then what was I doing? I was looking up anyway, and he gave me a knowing little smirk. Seemed like he might be a douchebag, but then the smirk turned into a smile. An awkward, sort of snaggle-toothed smile that accentuated the fact that _damn it, damn it, damn it, he’s cute_. That was it. Game over. He was cute, he was wearing an awful sweater, and he had cheekbones I could carve a turkey on.

He was my type, and I was gulping again and facing the fact of that particular matter as he stood up and smoothed out his t-shirt. He pushed the chair away from the table, still holding that yo-yo. He turned to me. The rest of the café was empty; soon the owner would tell us both to leave. My heart raced, hoping it would be together. Yes, I was that desperate. He stopped about two steps from my tiny table, and without thinking about it I blurted out: 

“You know there’s a storm tonight.” 

“I do.”

I just sat there, because, well, there was my entire line of conversation. Everything I’d carefully planned had been summarized in one almost-sarcastic sentence. I beg you to help me understand why I never bagged a boyfriend. 

At last, he broke the awkward silence, grabbing a chair and invading the personal space of my table in a way that made me bristle inwardly but didn’t exactly irk me. Wanting to jump someone’s bones really helps with the lack of being irked, I find. 

He looked very confused, and was still smiling when he asked me, “Where, pray tell, is the city limits sign around here?”

My silence was taken for discomfort instead of complete bamboozlement, and he held out one long-fingered hand. “I’m Matt, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said it like it didn’t matter, because usually it didn’t. “City limits sign?” 

“Yeah, you know. Like… a city limits sign?”

I blinked ahead and gaped a little. I’d never once seen the thing, if it even existed. “I don’t know. Do we have one? I don’t know.” 

“I thought it was sort of law to have one.” 

Pushing my tongue around the roof of my mouth, which was one of my usual nervous habits, I nodded at him and made a little noise of curiosity. “My name’s Dom.” 

Non sequitur, totally unprovoked, but something had urged me to introduce myself at that very moment. I was so nervous in social situations. Meeting new people, especially new people who seem extremely comfortable, confident, and pleased to be speaking to me? Fucking terrifying. My heart was tearing around beneath my skin, so that may have had something to do with blurting out my name. 

Matt nodded slowly. “Oh… okay. Dom. Nice to meet you.” 

I didn’t make a remark on how blue his eyes were, or anything like that. I’ll just be congratulating myself for that one over here on my own, thank you. 

“Um… why do you ask? About the city limits sign?” 

“Well, because there’s a hurricane blowing through later tonight and I’d better wrap up my business here before I have to pack up and catch a ride to the next town.” 

It clicked, somehow. I nodded with a scant smile. “You’re hitch-hiking.” 

He didn’t look destitute, nor did he seem like a vagrant. In fact he was quite well-groomed, but the new revelation would explain the state of his shoes and the fact that he was carrying such a huge bag around.

“Yeah. I am. City to city. I started from Denver, about four months ago. I’ve been to…” he held up a hand, and looked over to the side, and wiggled his fingers in the air. Long fingers. My god, such long fingers. “Fuck, I lost count. Let me get the book.” 

He hopped up and went to his table, unzipping the bag which, now that I got a good look, appeared to be just short of his full size. He pulled out a long leather bound volume and rushed back over, quick on his feet and biting his lip. That mouth. Those fingers. Those eyes. Who was I kidding? As long as he wasn’t hitch-hiking around killing people, I was already trying to convince my heart to stop trying to kill me and focus on letting me stay alive long enough to try and get laid. “The book?” I asked, pointing. 

“The book. That’s what I’m doing. I came into some money so I’m using it to go around the country, traveling however I can, and taking pictures for a book. I’m going to get it published, but first I need the stuff,” he flipped through the kraft paper pages of the scrapbook, and on every page there were photographs – lovely photographs, very artistic – every one of a city limits sign. “It’s going to be a collection of photos, city limits signs all over the United States.” 

“Oh, hey. That’s pretty cool. Nah, that’s really cool.” 

“If it catches on, I figure I can ask for an advance to do the same thing in Europe or somewhere,” he laughed. He shrugged. “I asked the last guy I rode with to drop me off in Sea Oats, Florida. Sounded like a cool name, might make a good addition,” Matt interrupted himself, “96, by the way. I have 96 photos now, of different cities. I’m trying to get some pretty obscure ones you can only find by really driving around and wandering. So that’s why I’m here.” 

“You’re not in Sea Oats,” I told him, a little bit sheepish.

“I’m not?” He crossed his arms around the scrapbook and looked just a bit crestfallen. Poor thing. Like a puppy. A gorgeous puppy I wanted to make out with. Wait. Never mind that one, that was a bad analogy.

“Nope. You’re in Original.” 

“Wait, the name of this town is Original?” He squinted and leaned forward a little, just as we were informed by the proprietor to clear out. I lifted my cup at him in appreciation, as I always did, and made it clear to Matt that we should not overstay the hospitality in this place. I could come in tomorrow and they would decide to start closing at 6 p.m.

“I mean, this place is called Original Java, isn’t it?” 

He shrugged, returning to his table. The café was small enough that we only had to raise our voices slightly to talk across the dining room, while I walked to the counter and deposited my spare change and a dollar bill in the tip jar. “Well, I just thought that was clever, like maybe it was one of a kind, unique. You know, _original_. Not a place name.” 

“I do know where the Sea Oats city limits sign is, but it’s about thirty miles down the coast. Come on, let’s go.” I had no idea where I was suggesting we go. Well, okay, not going to lie. I had _some_ idea. I just didn’t think it would work. And my heart was starting to really annoy me. My head was following along with it, sort of swimming and definitely not getting enough blood flow. I can be excused for making stupid decisions.

“Nah, I like Original better. More interesting. Better for the book.” 

I had to agree, and just nodded.

The owner of the café turned the lights out behind us with a resounding clunk of the power switch. Outside, it was balmy and way too hot and so humid that the air weighed on me like a winter coat I definitely did not want to be wearing. I let out a frustrated, throaty sound of discomfort on the sidewalk. “It’s so _humid_. I just can’t wait for this storm to pass.”

“I guess I’ll try to look for the sign again tomorrow,” Matt looked like a hiker gone wrong, with his backpack shadowing him, big enough that I wondered why he wasn’t toppling over like a turtle, left to flail about with his shell to the ground. The image made me giggle inwardly. He lifted an eyebrow. 

“Oh, sorry, man. I was just going to say, you’re probably not going to have much luck tomorrow. I’ll bet half the town will be shut down. Besides, you might want to give it some time, in case any lines are down or streets are closed.”

“Great,” he groused, and faced the dark street, “my God, you’re right, there’s no one out here, this town has shut down.”

“Hurricane.” I shrugged again. “You’ve got a place to stay?” 

He turned to me. “Not yet.” 

Maybe I should have been suspicious. Maybe I should have presented him with an application, asked for a security deposit and references. But then I remembered that this is why my friend Jen called me defective in the casual sex department, and that if I wanted to finally consider myself in the game again (not that I had ever been considerably In the Game to begin), I would simply _take a stranger home._

_Settle down, heart._

“Well, do you need a place?” I tried to be flirty. It was probably laughable, but he seemed to be easy enough about it, smiling ahead again and looking thoughtful. We had wandered into the parking lot. My almost-completely-paid-for Toyota Scion was nearby. My car, by the way, is far sexier than I am. I swear, sometimes, I pull up to places and see girls eyeing it, only to see me get out of the driver’s seat and look a little disappointed on contact. You know what, fuck them.

“I suppose I do. Hurricane and all.” 

“I live about five miles from here, if you want to crash. I have bottled water and Vienna sausages in bulk.” 

“What, now?” 

I shook my head, hands in pockets. “Florida joke, sorry, never mind. Hurricane stuff.” 

He nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s pretty cool. I mean, I don’t want to impose or anything. You don’t even know me, and—“ 

“No, it’s fine. I’m offering. As long as you don’t mind a little bit of clutter, and a pull-out bed—“ 

“I’ve slept on worse, believe me.” 

So, I guess that was it. I wanted to say something else, but I sort of started, stopped, and just gestured at my car, pulling the key out to unlock it from where we stood. The lights flashed on and my sexy little car alerted us of its presence. “This is me. We can – um, do you need to stop and get anything? Food? Anything?” 

He waved a hand in the air. “I’m fine,” then he really considered what I said, mumbling ‘nice ride’ as he circled my car, “unless you’re hungry, too. I can pay, if there’s anything open.” 

“There’s a little Thai place down the road, I actually think it might be their house, so I have yet to see them close before 2 a.m.” 

“Oh, god, Thai, that sounds fucking heavenly.” 

I smiled and he slipped into the passenger side. The moment of relative privacy gave me time to stare at the sky in complete astonishment. I caught my breath. _Calm down, Dom. Calm down. It’s just a dude. Not even necessarily a gay dude. He might just be a dude, going to sleep at your house. He’s got money, he’s a photographer, he’s cool. Oh, fuck, but if he is gay, and if he is flirting, and if you do get lucky, oh my God, Dom. Dom, he’s in your car. Start driving._

“Okay.”

“What was that?” Matt was pulling the seatbelt across his c hest as I took my seat behind the wheel. 

“Nothing!” I said, grinning. 

He held my eyes for a little longer than I figured Just a Dude may have.


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you want to say something about this? Please go ahead and say something about it, it’s always amusing to hear what people have to say.” 

Caught red-handed. Or, rather, red-eyed. Something like that, I don’t know. I was staring at the sweater he still had wrapped around his waist, as we left Thai Ups (yeah, no kidding) with our food. “It’s… it’s very colorful.” 

He snickered, a breathy and positively dorky sound that reminded me not in a small way of Muttley from… a bunch of cartoons that most certainly show my age. Moving on: “Yeah, I got it from this hippie I met in Arizona. Great guy. He made clothes, sold his stuff at festivals, that sort of jazz.” Matt fingered one sleeve of the tie-dyed sweater, looking strangely fond of it. He held his take out bag in one hand and unfurled the garment with the other, tossing it onto the seat and sitting right on top of it.

“I work at a pretentious clothing store, so I just look a little longer at what people wear, sorry,” I explained with a shrug. 

Matt was pulling open his bag, sticking his face inside, and breathing in deep. “Ahhhh,” he emerged once again, and I stared a minute, keys jangling in my hand, “don’t you love food so spicy it makes your nose tingle just _smelling_ it?” 

“Well, not particularly.” I had only been adventurous enough to get chicken and broccoli, mild. I added a laugh to my statement, though, not wanting to make him feel like my own lack of confidence was in any way a slight. As the car started, he was already tearing into one of his spring rolls. 

“Where do you work, then?” 

I sighed, not really wanting to discuss my job. “Express. In the mall. The men’s side.” 

He smiled as he chewed, and I looked at the road long enough to make sure I had the car pointed in the direction of my house. And on the right side of the road. When I glanced back, he was still looking. “Yeah, we have one of those where I’m from. They’re pricey.” 

“They’re mid-range, yeah,” I wasn’t really impressed with my job. I got some nice discounts on clothes, but my main reason for taking the position had gone bust. I figured long ago that I might meet more gay guys by working in a classier men’s store. Instead I just met more fraternity rejects and middle aged men trying to be hip. Turns out, gay guys don’t simply populate spontaneously in the vicinity of an Express, even when there’s a smoothie place within walking distance. “Sorry, I’m just not very interesting.” I laughed more loudly than I had, yet, crawling through the maze of stop signs and short blocks that made up the neighborhood I lived in. 

“Nah, I’ll bet you are,” he shifted around a little and looked out the window at the dark houses all around us. They were all vacation rentals that sat empty most of the year. Quite some distance from the beach, really, but close enough that people still paid top dollar in the right season, “people who can make themselves seem interesting just by small talk are probably compensating for something. And they usually just do the whole job – school – family thing, that’s all just surface bullshit. I like actually talking to people. So nah. I’ll bet you’re interesting. We just have to find the right topic.”

This guy was good with people. He just seemed far too amicable and unwavering, the sort who knew well enough not to talk about himself too much and was confident enough in silence not to force an awkward conversation. Me, I forced awkward conversation all the time. “Would wine help?” He finally asked, a little excitedly. 

“Oh, wine _always_ helps,” I answered immediately.

“I picked up a bottle last week, I haven’t even uncorked it yet. Maybe we can have some with the Thai?” 

“That sounds fantastic, yeah.”

I’d lucked into leasing one half of a duplex when the housing bubble burst on the coast, leaving the majority of real estate agents clamoring for whatever money they could get. With my credit as shoddy as it was, only luck could have managed to get my name on that lease. The rent was cheap, and the utilities weren’t as expensive as I figured. The place was nice, a mid-80’s construction that only had a few little quirks and problem areas. One bedroom, one bathroom, a full kitchen, and my own driveway. Matt seemed quite impressed, even if it was only the polite sort of impressed that socially adept people play at. 

“Cool house,” he commented, “it just looks really _Florida_ , you know?” 

“This whole town is really, really Florida, so that makes sense. I mean, some people think that Miami defines Florida. Flamingos, neon lights, colorful cocktails, and salsa music. But this is what it’s really like,” a gust of heavy wind blew through while we were in the driveway, and Matt stumbled just a little at it. The leaves in the yard all rustled and fell skittering across the pavement and into the street, tossed around as they would continue to be all night. Clean-up over the next week would be excruciating. “It’s all humidity, palm trees, and hurricane warnings. Well, and tourism. Hence the style of my house.” 

“It’s on stilts,” he commented, giggling oddly. I’d decided I liked that sound, dorky as it was. It made him seem a little less cool, and with as staggeringly cool as he seemed already, I was fine with grasping at whatever straws I could to feel better about myself. “They all are.”

“In case of storm surge. It would never reach this far, I’m about two miles inland. I guess it’s a selling point to idiots who rent these during the summer, though.” 

“So you get a bunch of wild Spring Breakers in your neighborhood?” He eyed me. I made out what I could in the darkness of the expression. See, here’s my thing: I tend to decide I want to fuck someone and then make a million excuses for why I _don’t_ want to fuck them, thereby giving myself an out from having to go through the mental and physical humiliation of getting to that point. So, studying Matt as I moved the keys around in my hand, I realized he was very strange-looking past the obvious charms. Weird nose, weird teeth. I’d already decided I liked his smile, though, so this _obviously_ didn’t make sense and I was _painfully_ trying to convince my mind to cut and run. 

_No dice, mind, we’re going in._

“Not in the slightest,” I chuckled, unlocking the door and kicking it open. I fumbled around inside for the light switch, and regarded the state of my house with a laugh, “oh, yeah, it’s a mess in here. No, we get Canadians. Northerners. Snowbirds, we call them. They take over the town for about seven months out of the year, then they leave and we hibernate on the money they brought in during that time. A great deal of them are still hanging about, really. Summer renters.” 

Matt looked around, standing in my entryway and nodding. 

“Living room,” I gestured around grandly at the smallish room, smacking the back of the couch, “this folds out. TV. Kitchen,” I pointed across the way to the kitchen. Like most people I know who didn’t have families, I had a space called a dining room with a thrift-store table set up in it, but the room should really just have been called the “Pile Random Things on Your Table Room”. So I didn’t point that out to Matt. No doubt he would notice the intimidating cluster of laundry, unread mail, and miscellany for himself. It was pretty sizable. “Help yourself to anything in there, and I do mean that. Just go in and do what you need to do. Bathroom’s on the right, in the hall. My bedroom’s in the back.” I gestured with a wave into the short hallway. 

“Nice. Thanks!”

I liked having a tiny place. It was easy to explain to visitors where everything was. I needed to put that down on the list of reasons I should bring people home more often. 

Meanwhile, on the list of reasons not to do that, leaving dirty plates and long-empty drinking glasses all over the living room was certainly at the top. I moved about quickly, gathering them up, as Matt moved himself into the kitchen with his food. 

This was a test. Did he really take me at my word? If he was truly skilled at this sort of thing he wouldn’t coyly ask “where are the forks?”, he would just – 

I paused with a precarious stack of dishes in my hands, and smiled as I watched him start opening one cabinet after another, one drawer after another, retrieving everything he needed in time. I nudged past him, putting the dirty dishes in the sink and running water over them to let them soak. What, did you think I was actually going to _wash_ them, right away? 

His white shirt had ridden up on his backside and he looked far more stacked than he actually was. Which is not to say that homeboy had absolutely no ass to speak of, but he wasn’t exactly packing a shake with his fries, if you know what I mean. I’m an admirer of asses, so I looked a little longer. He was skinny. In the interest of fairness, I do have a thing for skinny guys. I’m pretty skinny, myself, and I don’t like the default association of feeling wispy and feminine by comparison, if I date someone larger than me. Listen to me, going on like I’ve had any experience in that field.

When I got over admiring his rear region and telling myself that his general chinless-ness and weird shadow of stubble were _not_ , in fact, turning me off, I managed to fix myself a plate from my neatly compartmentalized takeout containers and suggest that we eat on the couch. 

Armed also with paper cups and wine (I was pathetic enough to not have wine glasses), we took up our positions and kept The Weather Channel on at low volume. It started raining while we ate, and after about ten minutes of that, Matt finally made a remark about it. “Holy shit,” were his exact words, “and this is only a Category 2?” 

I shrugged. “The rain’s the weakest part, actually. The wind and the flooding, that’s what does all the damage. And the wind doesn’t get that bad with a Cat 2.” 

I hadn’t really wanted to talk about hurricanes anymore, but as he sat cross-legged facing me, I realized it made me seem a little smart. So I went with it. He nodded and dabbed curry sauce from his chin occasionally, reacting as I relayed some of my experiences. 

“First time I’ve ever been to the South,” he told me, shaking his head, “never thought I’d get this sort of Red Carpet treatment.” 

I laughed. “So, you do this often, then? Just stay with random people on your way around the country?” 

“Yeah, it’s a blast. I’ve met so many different types, you know? You never know who’s going to be the person who takes you in for the night. The key is in being very kind, not judging anyone ahead of time. Usually, if you do that, you don’t get judged. I guess I can come off as a little aloof, but nothing that bad. I’ve never gone without, and I can always get a hotel. I just don’t like to, you know? I’d rather this be an experience, not just a mission to take pictures.” 

“I’ll bet you’ve gotten up to all sorts of crazy stuff.” 

He shrugged. “Believe it or not, nothing too unbelievable. Maybe that comes with the kindness, I don’t know. I’ve gone to some crazy parties, seen some really cool things, but I wouldn’t say anything was out of the ordinary. I mean, I’ve had some experiences. But not what you’re thinking, I’ll bet. Hey, are you going to eat that dumpling?” 

I’d ordered dumplings and then decided I didn’t really want them. “Nah, it’s all yours if you want it.” 

“Thanks,” he smiled at me before he speared it with his fork, lifting it up to tear into half of it immediately. He made a little growling sound that matched the movement, when he did. I chuckled.

“So, no Penthouse Forum situations?” 

I am the most awkward person in the entire world. Remember Ryan Seacrest during the first season of American Idol? I’m more awkward than that. _This_ was the way I flirted, the way I tried to bring sex into the conversation. By mentioning Penthouse. _Smooth as lumpy oatmeal, Dom._

Matt, thankfully, was good with people. He laughed loudly and sat back, fork left on his empty plate. “No, no, nothing like that. Besides, nubile young girls don’t tend to pick up strangers. The closest I think I came to anything like that was this nudist family I stayed with, outside of Austin. Never expected that, in Texas. They were really cool, though.” 

I didn’t know what to make of it. I needed more information. But how? He hadn’t been running around the country having guiltless sex. That much I would take his word for. But he still looked far more experienced than I was, stretching out one leg and rotating his socked foot at the ankle. “Been walking a lot, sorry. Ankles are all stiff.” 

“It’s cool.” 

I was still trying to decide how to go deeper, when he did it for me. “Yeah,” he sighed, “I actually really need to get laid. It’s been six months.”

I nearly choked on a water chestnut, and stopped chewing just long enough that he took it to mean something. Strangely, he took it to mean the opposite of what it actually had meant. “Oh, what?” He twisted his lip sadly. “That just made me sound really pathetic, I know.” 

“No!” I coughed in recovery. “No, no, definitely not.” 

“How about you? Crazy Florida Penthouse Forum lifestyle?” 

I finished chewing with the napkin at my mouth, glaring at him and doing math in my head. “It’s been since my 24th birthday.” 

“Well, that’s not—“ 

“I’m 27.” 

He was silent long enough that he had to clear his throat. I rolled my eyes. “More like Crazy Florida Reader’s Digest lifestyle,” I didn’t feel like letting my humiliation marinate, so I just kept talking. Another bad habit when I’m uncomfortable. “It’s not for lack of options! I’m just really stupidly picky. And I’ve had some close calls. I would get all the way to where I almost went through with something, and then I realized I wasn’t really attracted to the guy—the person. The person.” 

Matt’s eyes flashed and flared, a little wider, and in that moment of having given myself away we were both looking around in any other direction. I suddenly couldn’t stop clearing my throat – I blamed it on the dairy in my lychee latte, but it was probably the least attractive sound in the world. I gulped down another mouthful of wine, and then another. I felt it blooming hot through my sinuses, probably getting to my head. 

“Wow, that’s like a 20 year dry spell in gay years,” he finally said. 

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. Maybe it was the fact that red wine just _did_ that to me, but maybe his knack for saying the right thing actually extended to making me have a laugh at the expense of my own pathetic sexual situation. “Worst thing about it?” I offered, swirling the last of my wine in its cup. He nodded that I should continue, a sly smile playing on his suddenly not-so-weird-at-all face. “That was my first time. My first time was my last time.” 

“Last time, _relatively._ ” Matt pointed out strongly. I shrugged, fatalism with a good dose of woe-is-me thrown in. 

“Yeah, sure. Find me a boyfriend.” 

“Well, I’m not sure I have the time to do that.” 

Yup, I was getting tipsy. I took this as a hint, stopped drinking with the cup halfway tilted at my lips, and lifted an eyebrow at him. 

He waved. “Finding boyfriends is so overrated. Then you’ve got all that pressure to stay, to call, to go pick them up and take them to lunch when they’re at work, no. Fuck that. Don’t do that to yourself.” 

Sneering, I rolled my eyes. “Wish I could make it happen some other way.” 

Matt pressed a hand to his chest. For the first time I noticed that his nipples were poking out against that thin white shirt. I noticed, and then it became the entirety of my focus. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.” 

“Hold up,” I lifted a finger, “first things first before I react to that – are you gay?” 

He shrugged. “Sometimes. Most of the time,” then he sighed and rolled his eyes to snap right back at me, “since about four years ago, yeah.” 

I nodded, a little more comforted and still determined to read everything as a secret signal. “Okay… so you’ve never had a boyfriend? Then what, do you just pick up guys? That just seems so… I don’t know, impersonal.” 

“No. It’s not really. I run with a pretty artsy crowd, and we fuck around. We’re all friends. Some of them are with other people now, but that’s just how it happens. I mean, also there have been a couple of guys from bars or clubs. You know. I’m not saying I’m been everywhere and done everything, but it’s not that hard.” 

“My first time was with my best friend. He agreed to it, we tried it, We sort of stopped talking within those two years since. Really weird. Not exactly the same. I don’t have a crowd to run with.” I felt like all I was doing was grousing and making myself seem like a total sad-sack. What did I want from him, to feel sorry for me, pat my head, and say “there, there, it’s okay, I’ll just bend over.” 

Well… okay, yeah, that didn’t sound so bad.

“Dom?” 

“Yeah?” I leaned into my fist, against the arm of the couch nearest me. Why was I being so _defensive_ , I wondered? Oh, yeah. We were discussing the life and times of my penis, and its complete lack of anything to do that didn’t have a direct relation to my hand.

“You ever had your dick sucked, even?” 

Poker face. 

His eyes lit up and I had apparently missed something. How was that the magical missing element? “Okay, there are some things in the world I just can’t abide, you know.” 

I was shrugging again, but this time I made it a really dramatic, extended gesture. “I can’t help that no one’s ever wanted to!” 

“No one’s ever wanted to, or you’ve never let anyone? You say you’ve had close calls, what does that mean?” 

I grumbled and tried to convince myself, in that way I did, that this was not what I wanted. “You know, making out at a party, feeling each other up, that sort of thing. I’ve gotten that far and then I go ‘whoa, stop’. You know. God, I feel all weird. Listen, can we not talk about it? Sorry.”

“Why not? It’s just sex! Does it really make you that uncomfortable?” 

I resisted answering. In this particular case, yes. In most instances, I talked a pretty good game. “I don’t know, okay?”

He was acting too flip, too superior, what a douchebag, oh my god, in my own house, how dare he even think that—

“Okay, I’ll put this another way, then. Would you like me to show you just how easy it is to let someone suck your dick?” 

I didn’t even change my position, I just stopped, and looked over at him in slow motion with an incredulous look of what must have been sheer, dumbfounded _terror_. 

He crooked one of his cute little eyebrows and snickered.


	3. Chapter 3

_It’s just sex. It’s just sex. It’s just sex._

So easy to tell yourself, isn’t it? You just keep repeating it and repeating it, and then the words start to lose meaning, like early in the morning when you’re waiting for the coffee to finish brewing and you’re staring at the word “Folgers” until it actually becomes hilariously nonsensical. 

Of course, you sometimes get into those situations where words won’t help you. And then you start to do really stupid things, like stammering and scooting back in your spot on the couch, and addressing the audience directly. Sorry about the fourth wall. 

“Wait-wait-wait. Hold on, just because I’ve never done it doesn’t mean I want you to!” 

“Oh, you _don’t_?” He was not believing me, not for even a hot second. And in that moment, Matt’s unflinching confidence hit me full-on. He went beyond hot, off the grid, slamming into sexy at top speed. I believe I may have lost my breath, but keep in mind I was also panicking a little. It did not help in the slightest that my dick was being quite the contrary participant, insisting upon getting hard right then and there as my eyes wandered over Matt, took in his sweetly aggressive demeanor as he held his hands up. “Hey. I’m not trying to make you do something you don’t want to. Apparently that was a shit move, sorry. I just thought you were talking me up, since we met. That’s all. I told you it’s been a while for me, I’m out of practice in flirting. Forgive me? I’ll go take this back to the kitchen.” 

He made a move to stand up, shifting to the edge of the cushion and reaching for the mostly-empty bottle of wine

I gulped. I held up a hand of my own, sticking it out blindly like that would stop him. I was stunned when it did. “I’m not mad! I just… Christ,” I groaned in frustration, unable to find the words, “I’m bad at this, is all.” 

“Well…” He wanted to say ‘yeah’, or ‘that’s obvious’, or maybe ‘which would explain why you’ve never gotten a blowjob’, but he trailed off inoffensively enough and glanced sideways. “Now it’s all awkward, isn’t it?” 

“Sort of.” I let my arm fall limply over my lap and hung my head, shaking it. No idea what to say, what to do. Begging, maybe? _Yes, please, would you mind sucking me off, random good Samaritan? I’d really appreciate it!_

He didn’t take the bottle. He didn’t stand up, and in fact he turned toward me where he had moved. Then, after a tense silence, Matt reached over and touched the arm I’d dropped. “I guess I was just surprised, so I got wild too fast. You’re good looking. You’ve got a really nice body. So I sort of thought you were fucking with me or something,” he hissed as he realized that, instead of comforting me, he’d managed to throw in an accusation. “Maybe. Yeah, it got awkward. Sorry.”

Still, it felt nice to know he thought I was attractive. _What was that about my body, again? Do go on._

“Looks don’t mean much when you’re this socially inept, I guess.” 

“Shut up,” he shoved at my arm, then, with a chuckle, “I won’t put up with self-pity, I’m not going to start baby-talking you to make you feel better. You’re doing fine. Too bad you don’t want to fuck _me_ , because I’d be down for that.”

A jolt went up my cock, which had only just lowered its red flags, into my chest where it exploded and burned and sort of scared me. His implication scared me. It also made me hot as Hell. And I had no idea how to respond, again. 

Matt was smiling, a little sheepishly then, looking particularly adorable as he glanced down and shrugged. “No biggie. Your signals weren’t signals at all, I guess.”

“Oh, no, they most certainly were,” I scoffed, not even realizing I was saying the words until they were gone from my mouth. Then I sort of blinked, rewinding the last few seconds as I looked at him, puzzled at his expression. He smiled again, predatory and pleased as punch while I remembered what I’d said at last. 

“Go on.”

“Oh, God,” I covered my face, tried to hide. What was my problem? Gorgeous man on my couch, already spending the night, halfway to drunk, already completely forthcoming about wanting to fuck me, and I could only manage to feel like I was going to throw up? If getting my dick sucked was the cure for that, bring it on. Actually, bring it on either way. _As soon as I’m done feeling like I’m going to throw up._

“Okay, here’s another idea,” Matt scooted closer, again, edging in slyly. Not at all slyly, actually, more like warm and determined. He smelled a little like patchouli and cheap Laundromat detergent (which actually smelled rather good), and he set a hand on my shoulder, rubbing it.

Immediately, I moaned at the feeling, and that burst of heat that had exploded in me earlier took the opposite tack, bubbling up from my muscles and tingling all through my body. It settled in my lap. Which is a dumb way of putting it, because it didn’t settle in my thighs and when I put a napkin across my lap, I’m not exactly putting it on my cock. That heat? It settled in my cock, let’s be honest. Either way, it felt amazing, like a slow and welcome sort of arousal. As long as I kept my eyes closed, I figured, I could stay all ignorant of the situation and just _feel_ it. 

Matt whispered in my ear. Don’t forget, he was in the middle of an idea. I just had to take the moment to explain, in a lot more words than were really necessary, that I was getting a boner. “You don’t have to say anything. Do you want me? You can just nod.”

I nodded. Of course I nodded.

“Good,” his lips were close to my ear, brushing it occasionally. Then, he started to talk in a slightly different tone of voice, getting deeper and more private, and no wonder. “Because I sort of stuck around the coffee shop hoping you’d talk to me. I thought you were absolutely gorgeous. Noticed you weren’t wearing a ring, but still thought you were probably straight. Imagine my joy, then.” 

I formed this string of words that basically amounted to ‘yeah, me too,’ but then decided in a moment of perfectly sound judgment to keep not saying anything. I made a noise, though, a beckoning “mmm” as his hand fell down my back, and the other reached in to pet my thighs. My actual lap.

“Wanna fuck?” He closed his lips around the lobe of my ear and sucked only long enough for it to be testing, not weird or presumptive or even particularly aggressive. The way he added his teeth at the last moment came close to that, but then I felt him smiling into a sigh, rubbing his nose on my neck as I nodded.

“Oh, God yes,” I finally managed, gulping a breath as I did. “Yes, that would be awesome.” 

He giggled. “Did you say it would be _awesome_?” 

“Shut up,” I whispered, slightly humiliated, but made completely helpless by the way he was kissing in toward my mouth, smiling still. Instead of really feeling like an idiot for saying it, it was like I shared a little moment of my dorky self with someone who didn’t really seem to care. “You know what I mean.”

“I want to hear you talk more,” it wasn’t a command, but more like a sweet request right before he closed over my lips in a kiss, mouth moving and puckering and then plying me open. I let him, gladly, _more_ than gladly, offering my tongue to him until we were just moaning together into the movements. Tongues pushing while he guided me back, giving me enough room that I could wiggle into the position, half-angled against the arm of the couch while Matt arranged my legs around his waist. 

I blinked open as he pulled away from the kiss. His hands started roaming, long-fingered and precise while they pushed under my shirt, feeling out the little bumps of my ribs when I sucked in long, anxious breaths. After a minute he looked at me, already practically laid on top of my body. “Last time you jerked off?” he asked suddenly, more sensuously than I ever expected to hear that question, drawing a line down the center of my chest. I watched his fingers, eager to see if they would, indeed, go all the way down that path.

“Three days ago,” I shrugged one shoulder flippantly.

“Oh, this is going to be good,” he grinned, wonky tooth just as magnetic as I could have imagined, ever since my tongue had gotten quite familiar with it. He started to unbutton my jeans, and I locked my eyes shut again. “I love this moment. It’s like opening a present.” 

He talked like someone who got laid well and often, which I just considered a plus regardless of his actual lifestyle. I was probably inclined to put a lot of pluses in the column of whomever was ready to suck my cock, but Matt did an honest job of earning them, I have to admit.

“Wouldn’t really know,” I murmured, as he clutched denim and boxer shorts together in two fists and started to pull down. I held my breath, unconsciously. This was the very last moment of the night in which I wanted to be awkward. 

“No big deal, I’ll let you undress me later, show you what I mean. Until then, it will be a big surp— oh, well, hello there,“ I moaned to interrupt him as my cock got free of the fabric, springing up fully erect for his inspection, “speaking of big surprises.”

Before I could form any sort of intelligent reaction, he touched two fingers to the base of my cock and dragged them up slowly before wrapping his hand around it. Intelligent reaction was, suffice it to say, out of the question at that point. “ _Fuck._ ”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” he replied deeply, staring down at me. I just watched him, his unfamiliar hand pumping me, at first gently and then with a firmer stroke, “shit, Dom, _jackpot_.”

A chuckle came out half-formed, followed by an unconscious moan. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the phenomenon known as losing all of your anxiety and tension just as soon as someone shows vested interest in lavishing attention on the right places. I tipped my head back over the arm of the couch, and slid further toward him. His other hand pressed against my stomach and I began to breathe quicker as he leaned closer. 

“I can’t believe you think no one would have wanted to suck this,” Matt chuckled, and I was about to go off all catty and defensive, but it was game over when his lips touched the head of my cock. 

“Oh, fuck,” I whispered into the air, thighs clenching and relaxing as he rolled his tongue around and opened his mouth wider. I was being taken into a vacuum of heat that didn’t quite seem _possible_. I kept expecting to feel something that wasn’t quite insanely pleasurable from that first descent of Matt’s lips, but nothing else came. Nothing but a fucking incredible sensation I’d never known before, slipping around my dick like liquid or velvet or something that doesn’t come quite close to describing the perfect hot wetness of a simple human mouth. 

It’s so simple; I mean, you don’t even have to do anything. Literally you just lie there and take it. I’ve since learned that it’s perfectly acceptable to put a little muscle into the receiving end, but the best part is you don’t _have_ to. I just trusted Matt, who seemed perfectly capable of completing the task at hand without help. 

He was enjoying himself, was the best part, coming up for air after a few moments to let me know, “God, you’ve got a sweet cock.” 

And this is when the evening really began to pick up speed. And by that, I mean I quickly was learning just how uninhibited this peculiar, sexy, entirely agreeable stranger was. No Penthouse Forums situations, perhaps, but he had the mouth for it. Literally and figuratively. The phrase “like a Hoover” absolutely comes to mind, for the literal part. “Like a porn star” does, likewise, for the figurative side. 

I was quite glad I’d been given the option to remain quiet. Matt licked me up and down, and I heard his mouth sucking and smacking along the length of me where his lips followed his tongue. He gave me a long, dizzyingly tight suck at the tip before asking: “Well, what do you think so far?” 

“I think this is the best thing I’ve ever felt,” I answered without hesitation, chest heaving. 

“Yeah, and you’re still clothed. Wait until I’ve got you bent over this couch, sweetie.” 

Oh, ouch, it was “sweetie”, was it? I chuckled, more out of apprehension at the promise of an all new assault of nerves when it came time to get naked. The nickname wasn’t so bad. That was entirely because of how he said it, though. Sort of like a smartass, low in his throat where I could only imagine he was still tasting me. _That_ thought, particularly, did wonders for returning me to a state of euphoric disregard. 

“Can’t wait,” I rumbled as he fastened his mouth to my cock again and sucked, guiding me with his hand, squeezing my balls gently, rolling them in his palm, doing all of those things I had mostly given up hope of having someone else do without money changing hands. Okay, maybe I’m being facetious, there. Actually, no I’m not. I’d never had a blowjob before, but I was still sharp enough to know that what Matt was giving was an A+ top-of-the-line, downright _award-winning_ blowjob. The sort of blowjob you pay for, simply.

It was all in the details, I suppose. The way his tongue was so fixed and fitted to my shaft, curving around it just so to complement the rise and fall of his lips. The way he flicked it under the ridge of my head, and pushed it slightly into the slit for that moment of discomfort that was, frankly, quite erotic. But really, it could have just been the water-tight seal of his lips and it would have been enough. I was hardly qualified to ask a question like “where did you learn to suck cock?”, though, so I was left only to sit back and enjoy it. Moaning, trembling a little, wondering where to put my hands. 

One hand landed in his hair, and the other I scratched over the couch cushion and gripped it like a lifesaver. He was on a mission, I could tell. Over the course of the last several minutes he had brought me almost completely along, only to drop his pace or interrupt himself. Now, he obviously had only one thing on his mind, as did I. 

“Oh, God, I’m going to come. Oh, God,” I whined and announced this obvious fact with urgency, curling my fingers in his hair and pulling just a little as he continued the pace that would take me over the edge.

I decided to open my eyes, then, and I saw him looking at me with those incredible blue eyes of his, more communicative and fixed on me than I would have expected him to be with his mouth full of what it was. 

For a moment, I panicked that he might want to pull away from me to let me come, but that would have been underestimating just how committed he was to the encounter. In fact, Matt transferred both hands beneath me, grabbing handfuls of my ass and squeezing as he pulled me up into his mouth, sucking faster and harder (harder, yes, it was possible. I wouldn’t have thought so either). 

I gasped his name, which was all I could really do, and the moment I shot my load into his mouth he was already swallowing. A stunted groan squeezed from me, and Matt just kept sucking, pulling absolutely everything from me until I was dry, and shuddering, and pushing back at his head. “Stop, stop, oh fuck, stop, that’s too much.” 

“Sorry.” For the first time since he began, he faltered, coughing a little as he pulled away and dragged a wrist across his mouth. My, my, my, did he ever look pleased with himself. Entirely well-deserved. If I could have erected a monument to him, in that instant, I would have. But then I remembered I already had. And if I had anything to say about it, I’d be trying for another one by the end of the night. 

Indulge me the penis jokes; in retaliation, you may dispense with any remarks about flattering myself.

“No, no. Nothing to be sorry about. Fuck,” I was still breathing a little ragged, rubbing my hand all over my face as I tried to come down from the clutching aftershocks of orgasm, “just… _fuck_ , thank you.” 

“Oh, sweetie, we haven’t even gotten _started_ yet,” he assured me, eyebrow lifting again. I saw his tongue traveling all over the inside of his mouth, as he smiled evilly down at me. Matt lowered himself over my body and came right up to my mouth. I could feel the heat of his closeness. I could smell him. Everything was peppered with sex and I loved it. “Want to taste yourself?” He asked softly, lips whispering close to mine. 

“Mmm-hmm,” I told him, lazy smile forming on my lips as they twitched open, inviting the kiss. He gripped my face and kissed me hard, mouth grinding into mine as he rolled his hips over my tender groin. A few jolts of discomfort were nice, just then; they just made me realize how badly I wanted to get him naked. 

I didn’t taste half bad, actually. At least what was left of me, at that point. Just in case I’d missed anything from the kiss, though, I stayed in it, hungry inside of his mouth and eager to give it all the thanks it deserved. By the time we parted, I was back to my usual self in one way at least. 

“…wow.” 

Matt laughed, and he began to sit up. “You’re an articulate motherfucker, I love it,” with that, he took my hand, and placed it on his stomach, on his unexpectedly fleshy stomach that moved with quick breaths beneath my touch. When he let go, I spread my fingers there and looked up at him, still-tingling lips curling into a smile. 

“Like opening a present, you said?” I asked. 

“Oh, you’d better believe it,” he replied. 

“Awesome.” I grinned, and began to push up on his shirt.


	4. Chapter 4

Things like blowjobs tend to distract you from most other stimuli. I mean, to be honest (not that I’ve been bullshitting you this entire time), a car could have crashed into my wall while Matt was sucking me off, and I wouldn’t have cared. The fact that I didn’t _care_ , though, didn’t stop a hurricane from blowing outside. I was halfway through amateurishly jerking his pants open, when a loud crash made him jump and cry out in not the way I had been expecting. 

“What the fuck was that!?” 

“Sounds like a branch fell off in the front yard.” 

“Branch, hell! Sounded like a _tree_ fell!” 

I refused to be cock-blocked, literally, by a fucking branch. I sighed and reached for him again. He was still looking at the window, adorably scared, but finally remembered I was there once I had a handful of his cock. 

Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t really know what I was doing. He looked down at me, eyebrows raised in expectation. Wind was whistling and howling and whipping leaves (and apparently branches) around in the background, but he didn’t say a word to break our silence. He just let me take the moment. 

I squeezed my hand on the stiff bulge, and thankfully that wasn’t the wrong thing to do. He gave a smirking smile and closed his eyes with a pleasant “mmm,” like I was almost there but still nowhere near close enough to make him lose his cool. _Okay, so I have to up my game a little._ I was still at a loss for how to do this, exactly, while I rolled him in my hand. Nice feeling, that. Better than it felt to jerk away at myself, sometimes. There is a qualifier there, yes. I’m not going to lie; masturbation feels _really_ good, and doesn’t come with all the anxiety. 

“Your jeans are really soft.” 

“I, um--” yeah, of _course_ he was confused and didn’t know how to respond. I not only mentioned the word ‘soft’ while grabbing his cock, but admit it, nothing about what I blurted out was particularly smooth. “ Thank you?” 

“You know what, backspace backspace backspace. Forget I said that. Just—“

He touched my face, and ran his fingers up into my hair. “God, you’re pretty,” he mentioned softly, and then offered me a simple solution to my speechless problem: “Why don’t you say something about my dick, sweetie?”

“I need to see it, first.” I understood where he was going with that, and met his eyes in what I hoped was a seductive expression. He returned it. It looked good on him, at least. Better than good. I kept staring at his mouth. I couldn’t stop remembering what it had just done, and like a kid fresh off the rollercoaster I wanted to do it again. 

_Other parts of your body need tending to as well, Dominic James._

Oh, fuck - my inner dialogue sounded like the Fairy Godmother from _Sleeping Beauty_. What the fuck was that? 

“That was sort of my point.” 

“I figured.” I showed him my teeth in a nervous smile as I returned to tearing his (soft, in case you missed it) jeans open at the middle. 

“God damn, it’s hot,” Matt panted above me.

“You’re fucking right, it is.” I peeled the jeans away from his hips and reached inside the orange checkered boxer shorts beneath. I was sweating, he was sweating, I was almost gasping for breath but I chalked that up to the fact that I’d just gotten a pretty tiring blowjob. More importantly, I was holding a hard cock in my hand for the first time in way, way, _way_ too long. And I actually wanted to be, I wasn’t just doing it on the eye-rolling off-chance that I might get a handjob of my own out of the deal. Hooray for mutual ravenous attraction. “Oh, thank god.” _Damnit, Dominic, keep your motherfucking mouth shut while you’re thinking._ Just like that, my inner dialogue sounded like Samuel L. Jackson, instead.

“What’s that?” Matt giggled and breathed hard, pushing himself forward into my hand. 

I sighed, and figured I had no choice but to answer. “Thank god, it’s…” I scrambled for words, “you know, everything’s in place.” 

“Not the highest praise I’ve ever heard, but I’ll take it.” 

I stammered loudly, and tried to say something less awkward: “You’ve got a nice cock!” With that, Matt tossed his head back and laughed in what sounded less like mocking and more like triumph. Fuck being embarrassed, though, I was going to get fucked. In the good way, not in the ‘get fucked, jackass’ sort of way, mind. “I mean, it’s really nice.” 

I started to stroke it, and rain started to pound suddenly and ferociously against the window. I suppose Matt had learned that, as long as I wasn’t showing much concern for the hurricane, he didn’t need to, either. “You like it?” 

“Of course I do,” and we began to purr at each other, teasing back and forth with words the way people do. The mating dance, I guess? No dancing about it. I guess, if you want to stretch metaphors, my hand was doing the rumba with his dick, but no need for that.

“Yeah? What do you like about it?”

Oh, lord. I was about to exhibit my personal preferences, and all I had to draw from was the copious amount of porn I’d consumed in my lifetime. I smiled wickedly and examined his cock, finding more than a few things to be happy about besides the overwhelming, all-trumping facts that it was hard and working and attached to an extremely good-looking guy. Who also happened to be sitting across my lap. Still, I’d been asked the question and I intended to answer.

“It’s big.” Sorry, but you just _go_ to that, with guys. You know to go to it, and it works every time. Matt’s face brimmed with desire, ego buoyed by the remark. But really, it was. Couldn’t deny I was a little bit nervous about the candle fitting in the buttonhole, but sex makes you pretty fearless as well. Not wanting to leave it at that, I went on, “I also really like that it’s in my hand. But I’m sure it would be better somewhere else.” 

Wow. I actually managed something halfway erotic, for once. I was proud of myself, and did my best impression of his smug half-smirk when I said it.

Matt looked deliciously impressed by this, showing me the kind of expression that slams you to the ground and strips you naked. “Well, then, where do you want it?” 

It was time to stop being a shrinking violet and to start being the foul-mouthed little slut I’d always - secretly - wished I was. Maybe. I’d probably fuck that up, too. I ran my thumb over the tip of his cock, smearing around a well of precome, and licked my lips in spite of myself. “Um. In my ass.” 

Yes, ‘inside of me’ would have probably been more romantic. I’m not a fucking poet, I’m retail management. I’d save myself the delusions of being a foul-mouthed slut.

“Oh, that’s convenient, because I—“ 

And then, the Apocalypse. Okay, not actually, but in the moment that the lights blinked out and I heard a loud thunder clap somewhere a mile or two away, I found my brain running away with me. _Oh, shit, Jesus is pissed, mom was right._ “Fuck,” I squeaked, mercifully without saying a thing about Christ or the Rapture. 

Still, it was pitch black all around, and more importantly the air conditioning had failed as well. “Don’t panic, power just went out. It’s going to get really hot, soon, though.” I pulled my hand away to turn slightly, unable to see in front of my face but thinking maybe I could glimpse whether the power outage had also affected my next door neighbor. Just as I suspected, no lights as far as my eyes could see, out the window. 

Outside it was like a sound effects reel from a Halloween party, or the first act of a Michael Bay movie. It’s not like the glitch would interrupt our plans, but I still felt personally affronted that the electrical short had taken away my opportunity to look at Matt’s nice cock. “Hope you’re not afraid of the dark.”

“Not in the least,” I heard Matt shift, and felt him getting off of me. I strained to see. It would still be a few minutes before the moonlight would bleed through enough that I could make out his contours. He was stripping. I heard that much, at least. “Good excuse to get rid of these clothes, though."

“No fucking fair,” I whined, “I don’t get to see you naked.” 

“Well, the only solution is to fuck until dawn, right?” He leaned over, and wound up putting a hand clumsily on my chest. He groped up to my neck, asking with a laugh, “where’s your face? Shit. You’re right, it sucks that we can’t see each other, it’s a waste of you being so goddamned pretty.” 

I moaned appreciatively and took his hand, guiding it to my face. He brushed my lips and then bent down the rest of the way, kissing me. Faintly still, he tasted like sex. “Mmm,” I answered the kiss, “it’s not a complete loss. I always sort of had this fantasy, you know. When it would get really sweaty and uncomfortable during a hurricane, after the lights went out and there wasn’t much else to do but sleep… I’d think ‘man, it would be awesome to just have someone who wanted to fuck through all of this’.” Relating my sixteen-year-old sex fantasies to someone I had only just met was more of a thrill than I expected. Matt put one knee up on the couch next to my side, and stayed close to my face with his lips as he replied in a whisper. 

“Yeah, that’s pretty fucking hot. I mean, we’ll be getting sweaty anyway. Makes sense.” 

He was unexpectedly agreeable. Granted, we had already been ready to go for it, but somehow I expected that such an enduring dream scenario would never have come true without significant coaxing and years of familiarity, waiting for a not-so-significant hurricane to hit. “Don’t know if I can go until dawn, though, like you said. I have shitty stamina.” 

“Well,” he said, kissing the side of my face and down my neck, “you’ve never had me before, have you? Don’t be so sure about that.” 

“Jesus.” Ah, _there_ was my requisite blasphemy! At least it hadn’t been in a more questionable context.

I grabbed his bare back, squeezing, and pulled my hands around to rub over his chest. He was already balmy, not quite as sweaty as I felt. He was skinny through the chest, abs just muscular enough to be absolutely irresistible to the touch. Mostly hairless, until I reached his belly button and felt the tempting path leading down. “I would love to get my mouth all over you,” I told him. 

“We’ve got all night,” he snickered, “and thank god, because I’d like that, too.” Oh, yes, he went on. “For now, though, roll over.”

I held back, lest I lose my head somewhere between ‘hell yes, gonna get laid!’ and ‘oh shit, this might hurt.’ The first time, I had ruined the mood completely by managing to be a complete wimp about the pain when it hit. I didn’t enjoy the rest of it, and in fact both of us decided it wasn’t really worth playing the scene out to the end. Nothing to cause the strain in a friendship like ‘your cock felt like it was tearing me in half.’ 

But there was a psychological disconnect with Matt. I was terrified, in a way, that I was sort of _looking forward_ to the way it would feel. Since losing my virginity I’d been determined not to let something so embarrassing happen again (I missed so many life opportunities in the name of avoiding embarrassment, really). I bought a dildo, I made a habit of fucking myself with it, I got used to all those awkward feelings until, sure enough, they started to feel pretty good. 

Also, I didn’t have any baggage with this guy. No chance of feeling like he was hurting me on purpose because of that argument we had back in our freshman year of college over Jack Forner – you know, I need to really stop talking about it. I’ll leave it at this one more fact: Matt was a goddamned supermodel compared to the only other person I’d ever fucked.

I turned and held myself on the arm of the couch, stretching my ass up with far more enthusiasm than I would have if the lights were still on. But then I remembered that, because he couldn’t see me, I couldn’t let my body language do the talking. Shit, because I felt like my body language was pretty much screaming: _give it to me, big boy!_

He grabbed my ass without much need for blind groping, like his hand was magnetically pulled to it. I whimpered and leaned down, pushing up toward him like my old cat did when I scratched her back. Fitting, because I used to call her “Butt-whore,” lovingly. 

He did not waste any time. I was getting used to that. He just climbed up behind me, and pawed and squeezed at me with both hands, leaning close until I felt him brush a couple of spit-slick fingers over my entrance. You know, I feel weird calling it that. I know, that’s just what you call it, because ‘anus’ sounds like a clinical report and ‘asshole’ is just rude. Anything else is trying too hard. Besides, I’ve already established that I’m not a poet. Whatever, fuck it. He screwed a finger right against it, definitely with the intention of entering. Therefore, entrance will be sufficient. Maybe I’ll get creative later. 

Enter, he did. I opened my mouth and moaned out for him, sort of sounding like a strangled animal but who cares. I only did it that once. “Feels good, yeah?” He asked breathlessly, crooking his finger inside of me once he was knuckle-deep. 

“ _Fuck_ yes!” I barked, unintentionally loud. I don’t know why I was so concerned with being too loud; it’s not like we were in a library. Maybe I was worried about outdoing his enthusiasm, making a fool of myself. Making myself look desperate, because _god forbid_ you look desperate when you’re actually, balls-achingly desperate.

He reached under me, between my legs, and rubbed there, noting with a happy, evil sound that I was not still tender enough to be averse to a little direct stimulation. “More?” 

“More.” 

A thick wad of spit landed on me as he pulled the one finger out, and I gasped and held my breath at feeling it. I don’t know what it is, but being spit on is quite a polarizing experience. If it happens in most situations, it’s infuriating. Enough to cause of fistfight. About to get fucked, though? Shit, it’s like a hug and a kiss times a million.

I was ready for the candle to meet the buttonhole, and I have to admit that just thinking about it made me start flexing those very specific muscles in anticipation. 

The pad of a thumb came out to rub the wetness around the pucker of my hole, and again I cried out for him. If he were to just walk away right then, it was entirely possible that I might combust from the sheer desire. I was nothing, it felt like. Sex had its own mental physics, and I felt sort of like a black hole, ready and able only to suck and take. Other than that, I was just nothing. Just waiting. As long as I was sure he wouldn’t simply walk away, though (well, at least I knew he wouldn’t _drive_ away), it was an absolutely exhilarating kind of waiting. 

“Wish I could see your ass, it feels pretty amazing.” 

I liked my ass, so this was a compliment I was quite happy to take. “I wish you could, too,” I mumbled against my arm. 

“Tell me what you want. I want to make sure we’re on the same page, here.” 

“Mmm,” I had a habit of starting off like that, with him. Couldn’t help it. He made my appetite – all of my appetites, in fact – go into overdrive. I remembered his face behind my closed eyes, panted into the heavy heat of the room, and felt his long fingers wandering gracefully over my slowly hardening cock.“Fuck me.” 

He pushed the head of it against me, and I shuddered as if just that had made me come. “Yeah? This? You want this?” 

The tone of his voice was oddly intimate, like a whisper of softness was lining it. I felt strangely safe, even though, for all intents and purposes, I still knew nothing about him. Not only did he sound and act like he got fucked well and often, he knew how to turn strangers to putty in his hands. Still, even with all my usual paranoia, I felt like I could trust him. I wasn’t of enough mental capacity, with a dick pressed up against my ass, to consider that maybe this was part of some plan. 

No, I’ll tell you that right now: it was all perfectly fine. Being able to feel that trust just made it better, with no ulterior motives. Unless you’d consider fucking the life out of me to be ulterior. 

“I want it, I want you, fuck yes.” 

“Say my name.” 

“Matt,” I said the name and licked my lips, and felt my heart leap at the momentary spasm of anxiety when he pushed forward into me, “Matt!” 

I thought something was wrong, for a panicky flash. All because he went silent as he rocked inside of me, a bit at a time, in and out and deeper with every roll of his hips. He set his breath in an even pace and I thought – feared – that maybe I wasn’t up to par already. Finally, I figured he couldn’t possibly go deeper because it felt like he was filling every inch of me, and he bent down over my back. His chest was sweaty, by then, and it slid against my skin in a dirty, luscious moment of pure _sex_ as he whispered sweetly to me: “Can I keep you?” 

I felt a surge of pride, and all of the fear melted away to let me experience the rest of the moment. Under all the worry was the fact that I felt _amazing_ , as one of his arms wrapped around my waist and his dick slid inside of me with slow, powerful thrusts. 

It was getting harder to catch my breath, the body heat mixing with the stagnant humidity in the room and the pressure from outdoors. The storm continued fiercely and the rain was falling hard enough that it drowned out everything but what I heard right next to my body. All of it succeeded in creating a light-headed feeling, which was probably not very safe for our health but nonetheless hot as hell (both literally and figuratively). 

It had been a couple of minutes and I still hadn’t answered him, instead content to just be a typical unresponsive man stuck in the cycle of friction and sweat, grunting and moaning. Why, yes, he could keep me. Save me from this boring job and this mediocre apartment and my wholly unremarkable middle-class lifestyle and whisk me away to have bohemian hitch-hiking adventures all over the world, fucking in every country imaginable. 

Then I realized I’d probably get sick of him - or he of me - within a few days. I had to enjoy this while it lasted, no taking it for granted. 

“Whoa, there, fuck yes,” he said with clear surprise as I began to push myself back against him with force and rhythm that made our skin slap together as he drove balls-deep from the combined power of our enthusiasm. “You’re a sweet little fuck, aren’t you?” 

Like I’d given him a signal to take it to another level of depravity, Matt followed this with a firm smack to my ass. I almost squeaked out my next moan, but took no pains to hide the fact that it turned me on. Then, he grabbed my hair in his fist, and I whined out as he actually pulled me up off of my hands. He was unexpectedly strong, gathering me in his arms until we were kneeling together on the couch. His cock kept on its relentless and wonderful pounding beneath me, and his teeth grabbed onto my skin. He bit playfully and hungrily at my shoulder, neck, upper arm, right under my jaw with a sucking kiss – god, he was good. _Dear Big Gay Penthouse Forum…_

One of his legs was still off of the couch, giving him some considerable leverage as he pushed off from the floor. “Do you want me to come in you?” He asked. 

The thing is, not that I had any experience with it, but I would figure that the only people who _don’t_ ask for this permission are the exact people you don’t want coming inside of you. Matt, on the other hand? Hell, I thought he’d never ask. It was like being invited to prom by the most popular boy in school. Only… you know… with more anal sex. Or not, I don’t know what your prom was like.

I nodded as his fingers spread up and over my throat, his breath landing hot and quick on my cheek. “Yes.”

“Fuck, I’m going to come,” he said, dropping his voice back down to that intimate tone. He put a juicy kiss on the back of my neck and his hips tore into a turbo-charged rhythm, bucking into me with crazy speed and perfect precision as he held me tight in his lap. 

I gritted my teeth, trying to hold myself back. I figured it wasn’t considered very manly to whine and moan like a little whore the way I wanted to. _Wait, what am I thinking?_ The heat must have gotten to me, throwing up mirages that Matt hadn’t called me ‘pretty’ and ‘gorgeous’ and ‘sweet’. Upon further consideration - that being whatever little I was capable of eking out while being railed frantically and nearly fainting from the heat – he probably wanted that sort of reaction. 

“Oh, god! Oh, Matt, fuck yes, fucking do it, yes!” I opened my mouth and let all that flood out without restraint, moaning loudly after I did.

And then, glory hallelujah, Matt let out a majestic breath behind me, hands tensing on my skin as he said… nothing. He came quietly, but intensely, slamming fully into me once, twice, three times with thrusts that I felt in my bones and whined to receive.

I felt him come inside of me, which was mildly disorienting for how incredibly fucking sexy it was. His orgasm exploded, cock throbbing inside of my tight ass and shooting a heavy, loose feeling of unknown pleasure through my physical consciousness. The sexiness only hit a second after, as he held me close with a fading sigh. I realized that I could see shadows, finally, as I blinked open and took a few deep breaths just to check that I was still alive. 

“Holy shit,” I croaked, and I felt Matt smiling against my neck. _I am not, in fact, deceased._ “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” 

“Mmm-hmm,” was all he said in return, rocking us both gently together in that position. 

It was so strangely romantic. If I had the sort of personality anyone could manage to tolerate long enough to be attracted to and go through the weeks of initial dating, this was the sort of afterglow I wanted from a good, sensual session of lovemaking. Candles and rose petals and hot bubble baths led to this sort of feeling, just melting and relaxing together. Maybe I’d watched too many Boyz II Men videos growing up, though. I couldn’t help that, they were pretty inescapable for a while. Before I began to hum ‘I’ll Make Love to You’ without even realizing it, Matt breathed back to life and placed a re-energizing kiss on the sweat-clung taper of hair at the back of my neck. 

“Amazing,” I panted, still quite overcome with shock. I started to laugh, softly, from the sheer disbelief I felt.

Matt rubbed over my shoulders and arms, working the tense spots, feeling around to my chest, flattening his palms before dragging his fingertips and catching my nipples on the way. “You were a _beast_ ,” he said with a smile in his voice, a little teasing. 

“I don’t know what came over me,” I said, meaning to be a little cocky about it. I turned as much as I could, realizing immediately how hot my muscles were from the exertion. I felt like I was still stuck in that rhythm with him, the way you feel after a day playing in the waves at the beach. My pulse was still in overdrive, too, blood pounding through my neck and making my face hotter than I felt I should have been able to live through. Even so, I grinned and leaned back for a kiss from him. 

“I’m glad I went to that coffee shop,” he chuckled as our lips parted, tongue darting out to catch me again.

“Yeah…” I went blank, momentarily, and just blinked, trying to see him, damning the fact that my back was cramping in the half-turned position. He was still stoppering me where he was going soft inside of my body, but it felt too good to pull away. It was like we had actually melted and fused together, in the most purely sexual sense. That sounds a little bit like a scenario from a horror movie, so I wanted to make my literary intention clear.

“Hey,” he asked with a clearer tone, a tinge of worry there. It caught my attention. “The water still works, right?”

“Yeah. It’s not good for drinking, but… yeah,” I laughed lazily.

“Good, good,” he leaned back, and a rush of relatively cool air rushed in between our skin, making me shiver, “because I need the bathroom. Maybe we should take a break, I’ll wash up, we’ll light some candles if you’ve got ‘em, then…” He squeezed his hands questioningly at my sides and kissed behind my ear, adding a little “Hm?”

“Oh,” I breathed, “you don’t even need to ask.”


	5. Chapter 5

Candles were not exactly a precious commodity in my house, which was a good thing since Matt took my only hurricane lantern into the shower with him. While I fumbled around, naked and cheerful (for obvious reasons), I tried to amuse him with the story of how, growing up, I’d always used real hurricane lanterns. We kept oil and we struck matches to light the long, fabric wicks. They smelled awful when they burned. I think my parents had kept them as antiques from _their_ parents, but the fact was they stopped being practical. Now General Electric made the same lanterns, only as industrial-strength flashlights instead of oil-burning monstrosities. Fetching it from beneath the sink with a mighty laugh of triumph, I walked back into the living room to hand it over, nearly falling over the couch in the process.

Matt made the brilliant suggestion that I turn the lantern on before walking around blindly, and laughed at me. I took it well, shaking my head at that foolishness. He could have called me out on anything and I would have just grinned. Metaphorically, I was feeling no pain. Physically, it was only the best sort of pain I could imagine, and I wanted more of it. The evidence of his efforts was leaking out of me, a couple of thin, hot lines of liquid slowly tracking down my thighs. Normally that’s not a good thing, but I’ll go on record as saying it was one of the best feelings I could have imagined.

I turned on the lantern at his suggestion, only to find Matt much more stunning in the light than he had been in the shadows. _Oh, wow. Fuck me sideways._ He was standing up next to the couch, naked and fantastic, shiny with sweat. He looked exactly as my mind had conjured up from touching him, and even just looking at him standing there scratching his stomach made me begin to feel the familiar little tickle in my gullet, spreading long fingers of heat down to my groin. 

Wait, that wasn’t a poetic aside. In fact, those were _his_ long fingers. Sure enough, though, they were spreading down to his groin. Once they had moved intoxicatingly through the trimmed thatch of dark hair, he grabbed the base of his cock between thumb and forefinger and actually waved it at me, adding a cartoonish “Hello!” 

Maybe I _had_ been staring, but it was worth it for such a creative response. After trying to just shake my head, I doubled over and started to laugh hysterically as he came close and took the lantern. Once he had it, he edged toward the hallway with a pat to the small of my back. “Thanks, sweetie. I’ll try not to take too long.”

I could feel his eyes on my body as he purred “Nice” in passing. 

I whipped around to watch him go, no longer fighting the urge to lick my lips. The way he said that single word had been maddeningly provocative, therefore it was _his_ fault that I was ogling him. Yeah, that’s right, it was _his_ fault! He was the one walking around like that, talking like that, being like that. It was absolutely inexcusable that he was not still having sex with me, so he had earned the shameless ogling. 

His ass - pert, dimpled, delicious, and almost tempting enough to run after and lay a big, claiming smack on. But, again to save myself from embarrassment, I kept re-considering the action until I missed the opportunity. Oh, well. It had been good enough to just watch him walking away. So good, in fact, that I turned around and thought about sitting down and rubbing one out. With an audible “wow” at myself, I threw in a reminder that I had just had sex, and was likely going to continue having sex for the remainder of the night. However, I had to give my little guy props for his enthusiasm. 

While Matt was in the shower, I set to foraging in the house for candles. I found all sorts, from long tapered white and yellow ones to a couple of random scented numbers that my mom must have left on one of her visits, hoping to give the place a feminine touch. Nice try, mom. I arranged them around the place with no particular concern for aesthetics – a few on the coffee table in between the empty Mountain Dew cans and receipts, a few down the hall, and finally a handful in my bedroom, where I finally gave in and pulled on a pair of black workout pants. Wondering how much longer Matt would take, and in that wondering how I could possibly expect my next date to wind up nearly as good as this, I walked around aimlessly, listening to the storm and making sure the candles were not falling over. I heard the metallic squeaking as the water shut off in the bathroom, and then the rain slowed to a smattering. The wind calmed. Knowing this signal, I stepped down the newly candle-lit path to the front door. 

The eye of the storm. It’s not just a myth or a story people pass around, for as romantic and strange as it sounds. It really happens, that half-hour or so during a hurricane when the whole world seems to stop. You don’t need to be a poet to describe the way it feels, the way it sounds, the way it looks. It’s just _eerie_ , from the still heaviness in the air to the odd yellow tint in the sky, even in the dead of night. I’m drawn to it, regardless. I hadn’t often gotten to really experience the eye, living consistently a few miles off of the center. So, like any good fool, I swung the door open and stuck my head outside. 

Weird, is what it was. With a stupid grin on my face, I stepped outside and onto the front porch, still in my bare feet. I walked to the railing and looked up, bending my body over the edge just a little. Above, the tall pine trees swayed precariously. I stayed looking at them until I felt a hand brush over the small of my back.

At that I’m surprised I even kept my balance. “The shower worked?” 

“Quite,” Matt said suggestively, and placed his hands tentatively on my sides. “Is it over? The hurricane?” 

“It’s the eye of the storm,” I said, not really meaning to give it all the weight and melodrama of a line from some cheesy movie, but apparently doing so in spite of myself, “we’re at the halfway point.” Matt gave a noise of appreciation and pushed his nose into the back of my neck. I felt tendrils of his wet hair touching my skin, and it sent a chill up my spine.

“Mmm, you still smell like sex,” he noted. 

“And you went and washed yourself clean, didn’t you?” I replied, reaching back to grab at him. Whatever I could find, I just wanted it in my hand. I was fairly confident that anything would suit as long as it was part of him. 

I grabbed skin. More importantly, the skin of his hip. I felt the creeping knowledge that there should have been fabric where my hand was, and when I felt back more I knew it for sure. Bare ass, in my hand. On my porch. Naked. He was naked. 

Oh, well. It wasn’t like the cops were going to be dispatched in the middle of a natural disaster. Let him expose himself on the porch. If my neighbors were nosy enough to spy on me during a hurricane at nearly 2 a.m., that was their business.

“Jesus,” was all I said, laughing nervously as he pulled me back into him and I felt through my loose pants just how naked he was. 

“I wanted to be totally ready for you. Do you want to blow me? I want you to blow me,” he kept whispering fiendishly on my ear, breath tickling the hair against my skin. It was as if we had never even taken a break; he was right back into it, full-throttle. 

Little by little I started to suspect that he was secretly a high-priced prostitute who’d been hired by my friends to loosen me up so I’d be less insufferable. But my friends would never pay the money a whore of Matt’s caliber would command. Not for me, not voluntarily. Nope, this was all natural, and it had happened to _me_. He was smiling and nipping at my neck, laughing deeply as I tried to swat him away from reaching into my pants right there on the porch. 

“I… I’ve never—“ of course I had never, and I didn’t suspect he’d suddenly start thinking I _had_ , but I still felt the need to qualify myself before proceeding. 

“Then it’ll be just _fantastic_ , won’t it?” he purred and started to pull me backwards. I couldn’t believe it. He was actually dragging me back into my house. The hurricane was only halfway over, after all. And I had yet to learn so much. _Dear God_ , I glanced down at my lap as I walked back in his grip, _stamina, don’t fail me now._

“What do you mean?” Once he had me inside the house, Matt turned me in his arms and closed the door behind us. He kissed me and pulled me tight to his body, hands roaming up and down my back in long strokes while we moaned into each other. 

“Well,” he smiled on my lips, “I’ll be the first dick in your mouth, won’t I?” 

“Yeah…” I admitted, only a little insecure about this. 

“That’s hot as hell, Dom,” he kissed me so hard that I pulled back slightly on instinct before melting into the feeling. Also, hearing him say my name was sort of disorienting, and I had to make sure I wasn’t losing my head completely. “That you want to.”

“Just so you know,” what was I doing? I am such a spazz that I suddenly felt the need to defend myself to someone who was horny with enthusiasm over the prospect of deflowering my mouth. Why do I get so insecure, I wonder? Is it some need to feel in control of the situation, or do I still have a complex from grade school convincing me that everyone is secretly laughing at me? Whatever the case, I pushed away from him even though his lips seemed to hold onto mine like Chinese finger cuffs, and pressed a palm to his chest as I explained, “it’s not like I haven’t done _anything_ , you know. I just never did it right. Uh, not like this. Not at all.” 

“I know that,” I saw a split-second of withering pity play on his expression before he made it look sexy again, “ooohhh, sweetie, I know that. I don’t think you’d be acting the way you are if you hadn’t. Besides, I don’t care. You could stop right here and tell me you’ve sucked every cock in this county and I’d still want you.” 

“Oh, god. Why are we still talking about this?” I suddenly realized I was being ridiculous, and wet my lips in new anticipation. 

“I have _no_ idea.” 

“Tell me to do it?” I asked. We were still swaying just inside of the living room with the couch a few steps off. I gave not a single fuck. 

He lifted his eyebrows at me, and I almost wanted to stop him to say his eyes were quite enough, no need to add words to that command. But his _voice_ … I had to hear him saying it. Again, mind you, this was my filthy slut fantasy kicking in. 

“Come again?” 

I suppressed the urge to crack wise on that one, and looked down between us. In that pause, it dawned on him. 

“Oh…” he said slyly, and then wound one hand up my neck, his long fingers snaking nimbly into my hair to press a palm on the top of my head. I shivered, I think. _Filthy slut mode, engage._ “Oh. Suck my cock.” 

“ …okay.” I whimpered back stupidly, a giddy smile almost appearing as he pushed down.

I grabbed him, not yet considering myself an expert but certainly more confident than I’d been earlier than evening. I’d come far enough that he felt almost familiar in my hand, hot and silky and clean as a whistle. There’s a joke in there about blowing, I’m absolutely sure. I can’t be bothered to make it. 

Okay, I’m going to be honest about sucking cock – and I know this now: it’s not the world’s most pleasant experience, really. You’re not going to take an hour getting ready for a night on the town thinking “I’m going to suck a cock tonight”. I mean, okay, maybe you are, but I do certainly hope you’re more interested in the guy attached. The actual sucking of cock is like the sexual equivalent of aerobics class: the results are nice, and it takes practice to get it right, but by the middle of things you’re always wondering what you got yourself into, with the knowledge that you can’t just _stop_. No matter how nice the dick is, you can never get lazy.

Still, even though it’s something your body is perfectly right to naturally resist doing (unless you’ve been shoving whole cucumbers down your throat since childhood), I wanted to. Oh my god I wanted to, because he was standing there so sexy and appealing, combing firm fingers through my hair, leaving everything literally in my hands.

I wanted it to be like a lollipop or a Jolly Rancher, but alas, it was still a cock. So my throat still kind of seized up and I had to force myself to get rid of the gut reaction that laughed at me for even trying. After a sweet, taste-testing kiss to the tip, I opened my eyes up at him, seeking approval. 

First instinct was to chuckle at the way he looked from that angle. I fought that back by keeping my eyes on him and dragging my tongue from the base of his cock to the head, flicking my tongue there. Mimicking something I’d seen some girl do in a porno once (I didn’t have much else as a frame of reference, and hadn’t been paying much attention to Matt’s _technique_ earlier), I just kept working my tongue, hard and fast in little swiping passes over the tip. 

I had seen very few pornos lit by candlelight, not that I had much of a desire to watch straight porn. I considered our setting to be rather awesome, actually, even with all the Mountain Dew cans and empty Checkers drive-thru bags lying around. Okay… maybe only our lighting was awesome.

By the time I closed my eyes again, concentrating as I added my other hand to gently knead his balls, he let out a shockingly loud sigh of contentment (I resisted the urge to jump at it) and growled “Fucking hell. Fucking hell, Dom, put your lips around it.” 

So I did it. Sorry, the details sort of escape me, starting there. I remember bobbing my head a lot. I remember my cheeks getting tired, holding my mouth open like that. I _definitely_ remember Matt’s voice in those low, scintillating moments telling me what to do. “Deeper”, “Slower”, “Squeeze it a little”, “Fuck yes, with your tongue, just like that, again.” And the like. 

When he told me to stop, I was actually pretty grateful. I fell back into a kneel and rubbed my jaw, looking up at him with a slow-spreading grin as I waited. Above me, he tousled his fingers through his hair and rubbed both hands hard over his face, finally revealing a smile as he built volume on a long “Mmmmmmmm!”

“Yeah?” 

“ _Fuck_ yeah.” He panted, still looking a little ridiculous from so far above me but gorgeous with his hands held on top of his head, elbows pointing out. 

“Want me to keep going?” I almost pounced forward, but his fingers came in contact with my face as he laughed and pushed me back. Mesmerized by the taste his bitter precome had left in my mouth, I kept running my tongue over my palate, cheeks, and teeth. 

“No,” he smashed one of my eyes shut as he kept me away, giggling in that weird, high-pitched way he did. I relented, and waited for his command. Mmm, waiting for a command. I liked the feeling of that. “Nope, we’re going to do something really off the wall, if you’ll let me.” 

“If I’ll _let_ you?” I wondered just how off the wall he was meaning, and my heart started to beat faster. _This is it, he’s a total freak, he’s about to ask to drip hot wax on your dong, what have you done?_

“God, you look delicious when you get your eyebrows all… high on your face like that. Fuck it, I can’t explain it.” I knew what he meant, so I laughed and took the implied compliment. Still, I was nervous. Other kinky shit flashed through my head. _What if he’s a murderer? What if he wants to tie me to the bed and then he steals my kidney?_

You’d think I would have been more vigilant, but keep in mind that my paranoid anxieties were still battling against the fact that my eyes were drinking in the sight of him, standing there with one hand on his hip and his cock arching dark pink and swollen against his pretty pale belly. Lust won. 

“Go on, go on. What do you want me to let you do?” I leaned forward over my knees. 

He pointed at the hallway. “Bedroom’s that way, right?” 

Instead of nodding, I just turned and looked in that direction. Apparently the combination of cock and a few glasses of wine had caused me to forget the layout of my own house. 

Matt started walking down the hallway toward the bedroom, obviously not _really_ needing any confirmation. 

I started to wonder, as I scrambled to my feet and went after him, whether this would count as having sex _twice_ , or whether it would just count as one go when it came time to recount my exploits for whomever might be interested (the image I had was one of my day-to-day self, pulling up a photo of Matt in my cell phone to tell strangers “Yeah, I hit that”). I decided to go for two. 

When I stepped into my candle-lit room, I found Matt already on the bed, holding out his arms in what was almost a shrug. On his back, on my bed - _naked and ready_ on my bed. I just kept repeating it to myself over and over, trying to make myself believe it was real. 

“Get those fucking pants off,” he smirked at me, and gestured with his chin for me to get over to him as quickly as possible. 

In the doorway I stripped the workout pants off, giddy as a kid who’d been invited into the neighbor’s pool. I’m sure I came within a breath of saying “whee!” as I stepped quickly to the bed and crawled in over his body.

Our dicks touched as I settled on hands and knees over him, and he dodged my kiss for a moment to crane his neck around a bit, feeling down my back and trying to get a look. “Christ,” he breathed, “yeah, it’s just as nice in the light. You’ve got a little bubble down there, don’t you?” 

I pushed my little bubble up into his hand as I bent over him, kissing his mouth while my mind turned into fireworks at the ego trip. He rewarded it with a quick, harmless smack. By that point, we were kissing rather ferociously, and I was reckless about the way I rolled my hips down into his, the feeling of hard cock on hard cock just too much to resist. 

I could make up a bunch of details about how it went, where we moved, how my knees felt when I pulled up onto them, straddling his hips and obeying his dictation of our position and place. But I don’t really remember. It felt good, and it happened too fast, and I remember I felt especially ticklish as he brushed his thumbs over my hipbones, commenting on how he could spend a whole hour just tracing them with his tongue. 

“Really, _how_ are you not fucking people all the time? You’re so… _fuckable_ ,” he said, leaning up to kiss my neck hungrily as he worked wet fingers in and out of my ass, prepping me for a second ride on the Hot-Ass Hitchhiker Express. 

“Socially defective,” I mumbled, adding a breathy “Oh, god, I feel ready. Let’s just do it.” 

“Will you do me a favor?” He asked, as he grinned and I gaped, moving into place and concentrating with all my might as I guided him inside of me. 

I couldn’t respond immediately, because it felt so fucking good in that position that all I could manage was another one of those surely-sexy strangled animal cries. Heart pounding, face tingling hot, I managed to seat myself completely on his cock, leaned back a little to accommodate the pose. My abs looked _great_ from the forced strain. 

Moments later, I had miraculously not forgotten his question. “What favor? What do you want me to do?” 

“I want you to go and get fucked again after I leave. I want you to do it as soon as possible, and just take what you want. Because, trust me,” he panted and gave my body an appraising look. Okay, maybe not my body. He was looking with complete approval at my cock, though. I’d take that, “you can get what you want. Ass like that, body like that… and your smile…” 

He might have kept talking, but he was smart enough not to waste his energy. Within seconds I was testing my capacity to bounce on his lap, finding it quite more a workout than I’d expected. I managed to find a rhythm, and after a few near-dismounts, Matt was helping me with a firm hold on my hips. We were smiling, I was moaning like a slut while he played with my cock, and he was fucking my brains out from below. 

Best night ever.

The wind picked back up, and violently the rain returned, smashing against my windows and roof. We allowed the storm to conduct our proceedings, playing into the intensity and noise. Bed creaking, skin slapping, moaning, grunting, names thrown out with a pointed “fuck yes!” here and there.

One of my friends, nice enough despite her annoying tendency to constantly talk about fitness and outdoor activities, told me once about runner’s high. She said it feels like you could hit a wall and just keep going, that no matter how exhausted your body is you just keep pushing forward because the endorphins feel too good. 

Well, I had more than endorphins working for me. Matt held me steady and I started on a long whine, the sound wobbling ridiculously as my body moved up and down on him. By the time I reached my highest pitch, he gave me cock a deliberate squeeze and I exploded with a throaty cry. The build-up of orgasm had met the physical payoff perfectly, which is sometimes, sadly, not the case. I would have been pissed if I’d had a disappointing orgasm in that position, with that cock moving so swiftly and fantastically inside of me. 

And then, it was like runner’s high – excuse me, fucker’s high, or perhaps filthy slut’s high – turned into some sort of psychosis that translated into sexual Tourette’s. I felt myself fading and threw all of my eggs into one basket, spasming and shuddering around him as I yelled and gasped: “Yes, god, fuck my ass, fuck me, fuck me, yes!” 

…it sounds much better in real life, I’m sure. Looks a little stupid on paper.

He had been so silent that it was almost shocking to hear him suddenly chime back in with a passionate “Fuck yes, Dom, give me that sweet ass, make me come—“

His looks only marginally better on paper. It’s funny if you read it in Barry White’s voice. Go back and do that, it’s hilarious. 

Moving on. He bucked me up hard as he came, and I fell over him, onto my elbows which almost failed to hold me at the sudden shift. My muscles weren’t ready, but thankfully we avoided cracking our skulls together. I gasped, and nearly laughed, and he grabbed me in a tight kiss, swirling his tongue hard through my mouth as he pushed up into me hard, still not quite finished.

I broke away from his lips with a sob of pleasure. “Tap out time?” He asked with a sigh, rotating his hips under me, stirring around inside. I groaned and felt my head pounding with excitement, blood rushing back into every other part of my body as I tried to recover. 

Nodding, I croaked, “Yes.” 

“Should we extinguish the open flames?” He asked, laughing a little.

I groaned heavily, and in my weakened state I just rolled off of him. I waved at the air with a scowl to indicate that, in that moment, I gave no consideration to whether my house burned down while we slept.

He kissed my hip as he rose. “I’ll take care of it. You take care of calming down,” then, before he got away from my body, he added a whisper: “You deserve it after that show, you beautiful thing.” 

Moment by moment, the room got darker. The wind and rain seemed louder, and everything was hot, balmy, sweaty, sticky, heavy, so impossibly dirty and _perfect_ as I turned halfway over and rested my face against my arm. 

When Matt walked back into the bedroom, he didn’t douse all of the candles immediately. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he brought one with him, the last in the house still burning, and set it on the bedside table. “If it wouldn’t be super creepy and probably illegal, I’d take your picture like this.”

Part of me thrilled at that, and wanted to see it. 

“So instead,” he went on, knowing I wasn’t much for responding, “I’m just going to commit everything to memory.”

I felt his fingers tracing gently over me for a minute or two. It felt like forever, the way you sometimes groan awake in the morning and wonder how ten minutes of the snooze alarm keeps feeling like thirty. I was falling asleep, even as he dragged a washcloth over me, cleaning come from my softened cock, my thighs, my ass. I think I moaned in disappointment, and I think he chuckled. 

I was just about to fall asleep, unable to keep my eyes open for anything (not even him). I heard him blow sharply, even over the howling wind, and the room went absolutely black.

The next day, to employ a wildly overused cliché, I was alone. The electricity had returned, it was nearly noon, and there was a message on my cell phone from my boss, telling me the store wouldn’t open that day. 

I wasn’t panicked. I didn’t go looking for him. I knew he was gone, quick as he’d found me. 

Maybe a note, maybe a dirty photograph - _something_ , I thought, surely he would have left behind. After all that… 

I dragged myself between depressed and overjoyed for most of the morning (afternoon), blinking and yawning my way around the house, gathering up candles and depositing them in drawers to wait for the next power outage. At one point, I decided it was a good idea to eat. Into the kitchen I went, still lost in my haze of non-emotion, to heat up a disgustingly greasy frozen pizza. 

What I saw made me stop in my tracks. 

The colorful alphabet letter magnets I had thought were a fun idea long ago had been rearranged on my refrigerator door to read “DOM IS AN AWESOME FUCK”. I laughed and shook my head, missing someone I’d only known for less than a day, wondering where he’d gone and what he’d done. Whether he found the city limits sign or just went on to the next little town. 

Nothing more than that, I’m afraid. No check for ten thousand dollars because he was secretly a millionaire, no heartfelt love letter advising me to come find him, no kidneys missing. Even after all of the debauchery, it wound up rather boring. I invested the rest of the day in clearing branches from my driveway and deciding to leave the rest for my neighbor who actually enjoyed doing yard work for the whole block. 

I’d rejoin life later. I kept the magnets arranged as they were, though. I almost forgot to take them down. Thankfully, I remembered two weeks later. To be specific, I remembered on the same night I brought home an absolutely delectable piece of man and proceeded to do exactly as Matt had asked me. A favor returned, I suppose. Turned out to be easier than I thought. 

The best part was, this one stayed. And for some reason he kept coming back. Time flew by after I realized I was in a relationship. Chris and I had been together for just over a year before I knew it, sickening our mutual friends by being so happy with each other. He was hot and funny and the sex was incredible, but I never quite forgot the person who had – in a way – brought us together.


	6. Epilogue

It was hurricane season again, too hot to live, and I had been promoted to manager of my store. As a result, I was randomly thrown on other assignments that higher management did not want to do. One of the less mind-meltingly awful duties was fucking off for full weeks at a time to help new stores open in other cities. My travel and expenses were paid for, and I got to see new places without really needing to do much work. So, I got to dodge chunks of hurricane season in Original by being otherwise occupied in Charleston (not much better), Phoenix (sooooooo not better), and Chicago (heaven by comparison). 

I was walking through the food court of the mall where our store was opening, making circles in order to finish my slushie before returning to help unbox a full store’s worth of merchandise. By “help”, of course, I mean “stand around and tell the hourly employees to do it”. The third time I walked past the bookstore, I paused to take a longer look over the event announcements posted at the entrance.

And that’s when I saw it. Or, rather, him. His name, at least. 

The flyer was cheap and had been printed on the store’s photocopy machine, but it wasn’t the quality that concerned me. It was an announcement for a book signing. City Limits, by Matt Bellamy. 

At first, I didn’t fully comprehend what was happening. I’m sure I stood there with my half-finished grape slushie, looking like a fish-mouthed moron until I blinked my way to understanding. I hadn’t even thought about the book since last August. Somehow I had expected it to take much longer to reach the shelves. The flyer described it as _”A photographic journey through the heart of America ”_ \- typical copy, probably written by the shift manager who got stuck with the job of making up a flyer. 

Memories came rushing back, for a minute or two at least. I was interrupted by a lady with a child stroller, who nearly took my shins off trying to maneuver her way into the store. She even shot me a poisonous glare on her way. Lovely. I only hoped she was going to buy a book titled Chicken Soup for the Entitled Bitch’s Soul. On my way out, figuring that was my cue, I grabbed the flyer from its stand. They could print another one, I figured. Call me heartless. 

“Jerry, how long are we here, again?” I asked as I squirmed between boxes and shelving units, into the store-in-progress.

“Til Saturday, probably. I called Freida and she says it’s not likely they’ll let us go on Friday, not if the POS system hasn’t even been set up yet. This way we’ll have three days for training and—“ I stopped listening to him there, saying “thanks” and patting him on the back as I passed. 

That Saturday, I was at the bookstore around noon, armed with another grape slushie and just enough cash to make a purchase. With my mission in mind, I went straight to the shelf lined with copies of City Limits. 

“$45.00? Fucking hell, Matt,” I whined when I glimpsed the price tag.

As I was flipping through the pages, keeping an eye on the empty author’s table just in case he showed up between blinks, someone behind me remarked “The author’s here signing copies, you know. He’s eating lunch right now but he’ll be right back.” 

I turned around with a smile, and was greeted by boobs. They weren’t naked or anything, but nonetheless they were pushed up by a red lace corset top and quite obvious. From there, I managed to look at the face. She was pretty, with long dark hair and sharp eyes. They squinted at me just a bit to indicate that she had noticed my lingering glance.

“Is he now? I’d like to see him,” I said, trying still to find the photograph of my hometown city limits sign. When I hadn’t found it in four more page flips, I gave up trying for the time being. I’d come to it later. 

She couldn’t have been much younger than me, and so I hesitated to call her a girl, but there was a markedly youthful quality in the way she smiled and pushed her hair back. No obvious self-consciousness, nodding a little awkwardly. “You say that like you know him.” 

I half-shrugged. “We met once. Hung out.” 

“Really!” She flashed a lovely smile and gave me a curious look, reaching over to straighten out the display.

“Do _you_ know him?” I asked. She seemed like the type I would have imagined Matt surrounded himself with; dramatic and attractive, on the non-conformist side. 

A sly look shot my way and she seemed to waver between two different facial expressions, finally just rolling her shoulder into a shrug and looking a little uncomfortable as she said “I’m his wife, actually.” 

I must have returned to my fish-mouthed moron face, because she waved her hands in front of her face (it was at this point I noticed the ring) and laughed. “Only since last month, only since last month!” she clarified. “We met while he was working on the book, actually. I followed him. I just packed up and started traveling with him, and less than a year later he asked me to marry him.” 

If I wasn’t so phenomenally happy with Chris, I might have been jealous. It wouldn’t be entirely honest to say I was totally free of envy, though. “That’s really cool. That’s really cool.” 

Not a word of who I was, how I had known Matt. She asked, and I just told her I met him in Florida and he probably didn’t remember me. I was terrified at the possibility that he might have opened up to her about it. Thankfully, though, she just introduced herself as Julianne and told me she was going to be at the cafe getting her caffeine fix. As she walked away, I could not tear my eyes from her. I didn’t know much about Matt, but I could figure he had a thing for asses. You could bounce a quarter off of hers. 

It took Matt twenty more minutes to return to his table, right about the time I was starting to lose patience pretending to be interested in the Buy One Get One Half-Off display. In a rather cartoonish move I tugged at my collar with a grimace and made up my mind to approach with my purchased copy of City Limits. 

He looked amazing. “Oh, sorry,” he spoke up a little nervously, not looking at me as I stepped over, “I’m not setting up just yet, I’ll be back after I—“ 

Bright blue eyes. The most fascinating eyes I’d ever seen. He stopped, he shut up, and he just looked at me. It was like the whole scene paused for buffering as each of us waited on the other. “Dom…” he whispered, a smile pulling at his lips.

“You remembered,” I murmured, the book heavy under my arm. 

“Of course!” he started loudly, then dropped his voice when he remembered he was in a bookstore. Looking around to make sure no one had been disturbed, he giggled at me with the table still between us. It needed to stay there. I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions, otherwise. “Of course. What the hell are you doing in Chicago?” 

“Work. Total coincidence. Really weird,” I said, trying to make it sound like I wasn’t as thrilled as I was. I didn’t do nonchalant well, though. I probably just looked like I had developed a nervous tic, as much as I was shrugging. “I met your wife.” Those words sounded strange. I almost giggled at them.

“Oh! Did you?” He paused, and leaned forward with a slightly evil smile. “What do you think?”

“Pretty,” I admitted, and he nodded as if he knew very well. His pride in this fact made me laugh, so I didn’t really check my still-rampant awkwardness when I went on. “So she did the groupie thing, did she?” 

“What can I say?” He shrugged, much more naturally than I. “After meeting you, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to try and… you know… meet people in different cities. I met Julianne, and we hit it off. A lot like you and I did,” I knew what he meant by that, he didn’t need to give me the waggling eyebrows. I started laughing nervously, almost hysterically. “She’s the best. Really my type, you know. I love her.” 

A long pause as we just nodded at one another.

He jumped and snapped in the air once, reaching up and through his hair, “Um, um, um, what did I want to say, ummmm… oh yes!” Firmly, he pointed at me. “Did you do me that favor?” 

“I did,” I admitted with a grin of my own, letting my pride show as well. 

“Yeah, yeah? And?” 

“And it turned into something more, you could say. I’m with someone. We’ve been together just over a year, now.” 

“Really? Fantastic!”

Another pause. 

“Congratulations on the book.” 

“Oh, thanks.”

“Looks great.”

“I’m pleased with it.” 

Awkward. Sort of forced. We had no idea what to say to one another. “Sorry I’m all rushed. I have to catch a flight in two hours and O’Hare’s on the other side of the city.” I bounced, a bit nervous.

“Wow,” he coughed on a laugh, “yeah. Sorry, I really wish we had a chance to catch up. I’d buy you a drink, you could meet Jules…”

“Yeah, but…”

“Yeah.” When he realized, after a moment, that it would be impossible to spend more time together, and that serendipity had run its course on the afternoon, he just shook his head at me with a smirk. “You look good, Dom.”

“You too, Matt.”

The tone shifted drastically as he brightened again. “Let me sign your book!” He reached forward and for a split-second I caught his scent. I remembered it in a sharper way, in the midst of far more private activities. For a second I lost my breath and had to take a deeper one to recover. Matt may have noticed, because he gave me a heavy look as he came close, and pulled the book from beneath my arm. “Don’t think I‘ve forgotten a thing, Dom.” 

It was the first indication he had given me that reminded me of the Matt I’d met. However, that wasn’t exactly a good thing. Not in the middle of a crowded bookstore when I was wearing khakis that already fit quite snugly. 

“Yeah, me neither,” I cleared my throat into my hand to cover for the way I tripped over a particularly sharp breath. “Me neither.” 

That was enough, obviously. He opened up to the front cover and clicked his pen. Pausing, he wrote something in the air and then dropped the pen to the page. Before he wrote, though, he seemed to be going over something in his head. It took him some time, but he looked back up at me and shot me a positively filthy grin. “Is your boyfriend the jealous sort?” 

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. I loved having a jealous boyfriend, but only because Chris also trusted me to do things like fuck off to Chicago for a week without his supervision. 

“Then I’d better not sign this the way I’d like,” he laughed.

He tapped the pen on his lip and thought. Finally, he seemed to have an idea. “I’ll just give you a note, then,” he snatched a sheet off the bookstore notepad sitting nearby, and started to write. When I moved in to try and get a look at it, he covered the page with his hand. “No peeking, bitch,” he warned me.

I was about to make some remark about the message he had left on my refrigerator, realizing all at once that I hadn’t seen nor heard from him at all since being covered in sweat and come on the bed we’d shared. Just then, though, an employee approached Matt with a sheaf of paperwork, and said something to him that I could not hear. 

“All right, I’ll be right there,” Matt nodded, and looked up at me with a shrug. “I need to go sign some shit for this thing, sorry. Dom, you’d better catch a cab to the airport, you’re going to miss your flight if not.” 

“Yeah,” I smiled and watched him tuck the sheet of paper into the front cover. Then, in a scene lifted straight from _Silence of the Lambs_ , our index fingers brushed poignantly as Matt passed the book into my hands. 

Like someone had given me a Christmas present early and I was living in fear of Santa Claus, I held off the urge to open the book and see his message for longer than I would have predicted. My cab was halfway to O’Hare, though, when I couldn’t take the suspense any longer. 

With a deep breath and a bracing smile, I opened the long, hard cover of the book. Yes, long and hard. Settle down, this is supposed to be the meaningful ending. I won’t stand for your sexual innuendoes messing with my perfectly acceptable description of a coffee table book. 

Written in messy, cramped handwriting across the plain white paper, the message read: 

I wish I’d gotten to keep you a little longer, sweetie. XX, Matt.


End file.
